My Final Halloween

Halloween was always a thrill when I was a kid. I was always
moving, so there were always new houses to visit and unique attractions to see.
I loved dressing up as something new each year, and was always trying to outdo
the year before. Then came seventh grade, and Halloween lost its appeal. I was
big into horror movies, so dressing up and asking for candy seemed both
immature and childish. So, that year, my little brother went out alone, and I
stayed home to marathon some horror films- my new Halloween tradition.

From 8th-10th grade, I spent every
Halloween parked in front of the TV watching scary movies. I had no desire to
dress up, go out, or participate in anything Halloween related. I was happy
with my VHS tapes. But something happened during the summer between my
sophomore and junior year that changed all that; I finally got a hold of a dark
blue jumpsuit. How I got the blue jumpsuit was a bit of a horror story in
itself.

My grandmother had adopted my step-mom’s dog once she and my
father married. Rewis was a very old cocker spaniel who loved playing outdoors.
My grandma lives way out in the country, so it was an ideal place for him to
live out his last few years. Rewis
really took advantage of the North Carolina countryside. It wasn’t unusual for
him to be gone a day or two at a time, but he always returned home with his
tail wagging.

One day, I noticed a nasty odor inside the house. My
grandmother lives in a very old, very small concrete house that had a lot of
clutter. It wasn’t unusual to see a mouse here or there, and even sometimes a
snake. I checked all of the traps to see if we had caught something that was
creating this odor, but I found nothing. I assumed that a mouse must have died
in the walls or was buried behind some old, dusty, crap from the 1960’s.

It took three days, several cans of Glade, half a dozen
candles, before I realized we hadn’t seen Rewis since the smell began.

I went outside and pulled the crawlspace door off and out
rolled a smell of death and decay like no other I had ever smelt before or have
ever smelt again. The hot North Carolina summer had taken a normal nasty
situation and made it way worse. I could see the outline of his body lying on
its side half way across the house.

It was dirty and nasty, and my grandmother didn’t want me to
ruin my clothes. The year before, a worker who had jacked up her floor, had
left an old blue jumpsuit on her porch. I zipped it up and glanced down, I
realized I looked just like Michael Myers.

Without going into too many details, getting Rewis out was a
huge undertaking that involved a lot of crawling on my stomach, maggots, a
caved in side, and a hoe. I know it's Halloween time, but let’s move back to the
holiday discussion.

When I was fourteen, I purchased a Michael Myers mask. I had
an old Styrofoam head that sat on my bookshelf that I had decorated to look
like professional wrestler, Al Snow’s, head. I decided to sacrifice my immature
Styrofoam head to instead display my wonderful Michael Myers mask. That way,
each night, Michael Myers could watch over me as I slept.

It occurred to me as my last Halloween approached that I was
now in possession of the two things needed to pull off a great Michael Myers
outfit. I had a good mask and a perfect jumpsuit. There was also a sign in my
front yard that said Myers’ House so that just made things even better.

My best friend Anthony decided to accompany me on my evening
of walking around and looking terrifying. I had no interest in collecting
candy, especially since carrying a bag around would ruin my awesome costume,
not to mention, I was too old for that. My goal was just to walk the streets of
our neighborhood, slowly and methodically, like Michael Myers does.

Anthony decided to ruin that. He had no interest in dressing
up as anything, so he walked around as himself. And by himself I mean he was
very loud, overly active, and incredibly annoying. My mysterious night of fear
was now downgraded to one bad *ss Michael Myers and his annoying high school
sidekick.

We had a great time still. We walked around, chatted and
attempted to scare some of our neighbors, and Anthony even decided to try and
score some candy. One older gentleman, that neither of us knew thought it would
be hilarious to mess with Anthony. He refused to give him any candy, and insisted
on him doing a trick. We stood out in this man’s driveway as he put Anthony
through the ringer. Every trick, joke, or impression that Anthony tried wasn’t
good enough. I’ve never seen a man work so hard for a fun size bag of M&Ms.
It took almost twenty minutes, but he finally did enough to impress the man. I
actually think the man was just rewarding Anthony for making him laugh so much
over that twenty minutes of torture.

The second house Anthony approached was the house of a girl
who rode our school bus. She opened the door, chastised him for not wearing a
costume, then proceeded to beam him with several pieces of taffy. I just stood
at the end of the drive in my Michael Myers get up trying not to fall down
laughing.

That wasn’t to say that I didn’t do something stupid that
night. One of our neighbors called me over to introduce me to my new next door
neighbors. His cousin had bought the house next to ours and was going to move
in the following month. I walked over, introduced myself and met his cousin and
his wife. They were very friendly, excited to be moving into our
neighborhood, and seemed to be having a good time. By this point, I had been in
my Michael Myers costume for about an hour, and I had really forgotten that I
was even wearing it. So, when I decided to walk over and wave hi to their
infant sitting in the stroller, I wasn’t prepared for the screaming that was
about to occur. It took less than a second for that baby to change from happy
and content, into utterly terrified and in need of rescuing. That got the
attention of his three year old brother, who came running over and stopped dead
in his tracks once he saw me. I also watched his face change in slow motion
from happy to “Oh my gawd, I’m going to die.”

I instantly felt terrible for my mistake, so I reached for the
back of the mask to show the kids that I’m not a monster. It’s one thing to try
and emotionally scar your own siblings, it’s another thing to do that to
innocent strangers. Of course, my face was extremely sweaty by this point. It
was a humid Memphis night, and the jump suit and latex mask hadn’t helped
anything. I pulled and pulled trying to yank the mask off, but it had pretty
much sealed to my face. Meanwhile, I can hear all the screaming from one side
and the footsteps of adults coming from the other side. For the only time that
night, I became scared.

I remind you, I didn’t know these people. I had met them
just minutes before. I knew things looked bad, here I was a high schooler,
running around scaring their children. I finally wrestled the mask off,
smearing the black paint surrounding my eyes all over my face and into my mouth
in the process, but I was finally looking somewhat like a normal person.

I was afraid to look up. I wasn’t really sure what face I
was going to see on these new neighbors. I don’t think I’ve ever felt relief
like I did when I saw them all smiling and smirking. I guess I looked pretty
silly being stuck in my mask, and even sillier with black eye paint smeared
across my lips. I apologized like crazy, but there was no need to. They knew
what happened, found it funny, and were already reassuring their children that
all was okay. I was able to bribe the three year old with some of the
candy Anthony had acquired, and managed to make everything right in the world.

Of course, Anthony being Anthony, he had actually fell down
on the ground laughing while I was struggling with the mask. We decided we had
experienced enough fun for one evening, and headed back to my house to watch Halloween. Anthony had
never seen it, and even though we watched the entire flick, I’d say he still
hasn’t ever seen it. He spent the entire ninety minutes still laughing at me
and the goofy dance I did trying to get my sweaty Michael Myers mask off.

That was my final
Halloween. I’m not really a party guy, so I’ve never been in a situation to
dress up and I don’t have any kids to take trick or treating. I’m actually okay
with that being my final Halloween. It was a fun night that I got to spend with
my best friend, and it provided us with jokes to make about each other for the
rest of our lives. You can’t really ask for anything more than that.

@demonpuppet87 - We think it was just old age. He was very old and was getting slow. He was an indoor dog, who loved being outdoors. We're not quite sure why he'd crawl under the house, unless it was just to escape the sun for a while.

Great story. 7th grade was the last time I went out trick or treating too. What happened that night was a blizzard. I think me, my brother, and one of our friends were the only kids out that night on the street. Fittingly I dressed up as Sub Zero from Mortal Kombat although wearing a coat kinda threw the whole look off. While we did get a lot of candy that night we ended up paying for it, All three of us ended up getting the flu. After that I just grew out of it.

I think you pegged just what makes Michael Myers scary, the slow and methodical walk. I love how that was your goal just to add to the atmosphere of Halloween by adding the creepy walk to your neighborhood. Well done man.